"Illegal immigrants will not be covered by this bill." They should be.

Great Debates
1

I don’t hang around in GD a whole lot, and I know there are multiple debates about healthcare reform going on. So I apologize is this has been done and if so, feel free to close this thread and direct me to it.

One of the charges that anti-reform activists have levelled at the proposed healthcare changes is that it will give free healthcare to illegal immigrants at the expense of the American taxpayer. The White House has denied this, and the President specifically declared in his speech last night that they would not be covered in his proposal.

This is a mistake. They absolutely should be included. I have three reasons.

1) It makes financial sense. When people – documented or not – do not have health insurance, they don’t go to the doctor. At least, not until it is critically necessary. At that point, they go to the ER (where they have to be treated) or to a public clinic (who will patch them up as well as possible). Who pays for this? The American taxpayer!

My sister-in-law is a nurse at a public clinic, employed by the state. A large number of her patients are undocumented immigrants. They come in with advanced conditions that could have been prevented with health education, screening, preventative medicine or maintenance drugs. All of which would have been cheaper than the catastrophic care they have to receive when they finally show up in the ER or in her examination room. Unless we are prepared not to treat these people AT ALL, and let them die in the streets, it is a better investment to keep them healthy than to not treat them until they are seriously ill at huge expense.

2) It makes public health sense. Do we want illegal immigrants walking around with undiagnosed, untreated illnesses and diseases? Do you want to sit on a bus next to someone who has a hacking cough or scaling skin or open wound because they cannot afford a doctor? Do you want your kids in school with children who have not received immunizations because their parents are illegal and can’t afford them?

3) It makes moral sense. Yes, these folks are breaking the law. Yet, we provide healthcare to prisoners. Human decency requires us to take care of people who are sick, especially the poor among us - not just those who follow the rules. For those who call themselves Christian: Mercy triumphs over judgment! (Jas 2:13).

I’m disappointed – not just that they are not covered by the current proposals, but moreso that there has been little, if any, debate about it.

2

You are absolutely right.

But the skillfully cultivated mix of fear, racism, hysteria, superiority and irrational thought surrounding anything having to do with illegal immigrants means that nobody think rationally about this subject.

3

It’s sad we make them trudge all across Central & South America to cross our border in order to have access of free health care. Maybe we should just build a network of medical facilities south of the border so they don’t have to leave thier families and homes behind…

4

I’m not saying we open our borders to the unwashed masses. I’m saying we treat the ones who are here like human beings.

5

I applaud the OP. Very well said. What a pity that those politicians who preach and boast of their Christianity can’t practice it. It’s far easier to score points with the paranoid loons on the right by pandering to their fears of Scary Brown People.

6

Granting free health care to people who aren’t legal residents is something we don’t even do here in Canada. For one thing, it simply can’t work, from an administrative point of view; for whom is the procedure billed? How does the physican submit paperwork on someone whom the government doesn’t know exists… indeed, for someone who might not want the government to know they exist?

7

The problem really only exists if the method of acquiring health care (be it through a health card or whatever) requires a form of identification that can easily be doctored. If the person submitting for a “health card” does it with 2 valid forms of id such as a utility bill and social security number then what can the system do aside from due diligence? The ultimate responsibility is on the enforcement of social security numbers. Unless that is tightened up then of course the systems that rely on it are open to abuse.

8

Your terminology, not mine - but at any rate…too late

9

Yea, while I agree with the OP’s points, the practical problems to providing healthcare to illegals is pretty difficult (and of course, politically its a non-starter). Especially since the current reform plan will probably use federal tax-returns to distribute subsidies, and I imagine illegals are either paid under the table or are filing under fake SS numbers.

Actually, one wonders what the interaction will be between new requirements that employers provide health care and those employers that hire illegals. I would presume that it will both make it harder to hire illegals with out the gov’t finding out, and make it easier for those illegals that do get hired to get health care.

Anyways, seems the more obvious solution is just to expand free clinics and the like for preventative care, pre-natal, etc, and continue the current system of forcing hospitals to give ER care in the case of emergencies.

10

I agree with the OP, and applaud his courage in stating it. I would add this: If our long-term goal is to have everyone who lives in the U.S. and positively contributes to its economy (and culture) covered by fair, secure, and reasonably-priced health insurance, then it makes perfect sense to include undocumented workers, especially those that reside here more or less permanently – BUT this can be construed as yet another reason why we should gradually bring these people into the LEGAL system of the U.S. In other words, not blanket amnesty perhaps, but a steady march toward harmonizing the de facto reality with the de jure stupidity – speed up, and make easier, the process by which hardworking, undocumented residents-in-all-but-name can become legal U.S. residents (and some of them, eventually, citizens).

As others have pointed out, proposing this now would be political suicide for Obama. But he’s probably (I hope!) going to start pushing for something like this sooner or later, and it WILL impact the health care overhaul – in a good way.

I guess you could simply state this as, “Maybe it DOES make sense to make the health care insurance system inaccessible to illegal immigrants – but why the heck are so many folks still “illegal” anyway?”

11

An illegal alien shows up at a hospital emergency room, desperately ill and close to death as the result of an untreated infection. Do you let him die?

12

4) It doesn’t make political sense, and that trumps your 1, 2, and 3.

For the first time since – I don’t know, Roosevelt? – we have a realistic chance of providing a public health insurance option for the majority of citizens who need it, like most advanced democratic nations do. But it’s hanging by a thread, and an acrimonious debate about insuring illegal aliens will snap that thread. (I mean, of course, a legislative debate. Debates on this message board are unlikely to affect the real world.)

Let’s pull together to get something in place. Then we can talk about making it more inclusive. (Shhh, don’t tell anyone I said that.)

13

I’d rather have a sensible health care plan that doesn’t cover illegal immigrants than a perfect blueprint plan that does, but cannot get passed. Just like I am willing to give up (under much greater protest in fact, but still willing) federal funding for abortions.

14

I would treat him, and then call border patrol. I think it would be a fair exchange. We’ll give them first-time-only free health care , and they’ll be asked to re-enter the country legally.

15

I think the administrative problems are not insurmountable. Don’t some states allow undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses? And car insurance? If there was political will, some kind of system could be put in place.

But I acknowledge the political impossibility of inclusion – which is a shame, but is reality. That’s why I indicated at the end of my OP that I’m more upset at the lack of debate than the exclusion in the proposal iteself. Even if the Democrats would say “we’d like to include this… but for the sake of policital compromise and in good faith, we’ll leave it out.” That would at least spur discussion and debate without killing the proposal. And maybe Obama could try to expand it in his second term (along with comprehensive immigration reform, with a nod to JKellyMap).

16

Just curious… When I want to illustrate the excluded middle fallacy, can I just link to this post?

17

I’m not sure what will satisfy the critics of the healthcare bill vis-à-vis illegal immigrants. Do people have to present 27 forms of ID, notarized and in triplicate, to receive health care?

I’m an american citizen, and I’ve had a bitch of a time rounding up enough identification to get a drivers license in a new state. I don’t give a shit about denying illegal immigrants drivers licenses. If they’re already here and we aren’t going to kick them out, what purpose does it serve?

Throwing up burdensome identification requirements doesn’t stop illegal immigrants from flowing in. All it does is inconvenience everyone just to make it look like we’re being tough on immigration. Politicians won’t actually do anything because they are in the pockets of lobbyists whose companies love the cheap labor that’s flowing in, but they still have to appear like they’re doing something to appease the Lou Dobbs voter base. The fence that only covers 700 miles of a 1,900 mile border is simply retarded. We need to either crap or get off the pot when it comes to this issue, because these half measures do zero good.

18

But at that point, you’ve already paid for their healthcare- and it was likely more expensive than early, preventative care.

19

Yeah the problem is that we have immigration quotas.

http://www.immigralaw.com/english/immigrationquotas.html

Most of these illegal immigrants can only get their greencard through the lottery, and there are only 55,000 lottery slot every year. There are supposed to be millions of illegal immigratns in the USA.

I agree that we have the right to control immigration as a sovereign nation but we really can’t just deport people and say come back here legally. They are not here illeaglly because they are too lazy to fill out the applications and wait a reasonable amount of time, they are here illegally because the legal avenue only gives him a 1%/year chance of getting a working visa.

Perhaps we should deport illegal immigrants at emergency rooms but frankly that is just going to lead to more dead or very ill illegal immigrants (bad public health policy) and the ones that do get deported are not liekly to stay deported. What happens if they come back and get sick again? Do we stop treatment at this point or do we give him another stern lecture about following the law and deport him again?

20

Not necessarily true. I don’t have health insurance, and I probably go to a doctor (not the ER) more frequently than you do . . . and pay for it myself.